


Unusual Pet

by RinNightroad



Category: Ai no Kusabi
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-02
Updated: 2019-02-26
Packaged: 2019-05-17 09:38:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,144
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14829849
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RinNightroad/pseuds/RinNightroad
Summary: Continuation of A Gift. Aisha received a gift from Gideon, and now he has an unusual pet.





	1. Early Morning Surprise

Gideon was fast asleep when the comm in his room went off, waking him with a start. He sat up and looked around in the dim light for the source, wondering who would be trying to contact him at this ungodly hour. He was delightfully surprised to have Aisha’s face pop up on the holoscreen. “It’s a bit early for this don’t you think?” he teased.

“Shut it and get over here.” Aisha ended his call.

Bewildered but very intrigued, Gideon got up and pulled on a robe. What in Jupiter’s name could Aisha want with him at this time of the night? Or morning. It definitely wasn’t sex, though Gideon could always hope.

Minutes later the furniture, Tomass, was letting Gideon into Aisha’s suite. The first thing he noticed was how oddly messy the living room was. The coffee table was pushed inches out of place, and bits of something were scattered all over the floor. The carpet had wet spots on it here and there. The second was Aisha, back to him, crouched on the floor, looking at something.

“What ever is the matter?” Gideon asked a he approached, unsure of how to read the mood.

“This is the matter.” Aisha’s tone had a level of uncertainty to it that Gideon had never heard before. He couldn’t imagine what would unsettle the icy blondie.

Aisha stood and turned, holding the egg in his arms. The egg moved and chirped.

Gideon blinked in surprise. “Is that...?” He looked at the floor, now noticing what the mess was.

A small head popped up from the mass of pink Aisha was holding and chirped again.

“Sweet Jupiter! It’s adorable!”

“She, not it,” Aisha replied automatically.

Gideon was nearly quivering with excitement. “Oh, I can’t believe it hatched! Who would have thought!”

Aisha pet the small scaly head. “She’s hungry, but I don’t know what to feed her. The furniture are not trained to care for these types of pets.” It didn’t help that the system lacked data on dragons.

“I can I hold her?” The excitable blondie held out his hands.

“No.” Aisha didn’t know why, but he did not want to share his dragon right now. He didn’t realize that at the moment the hatchling was imprinting on him, much like a bird.

Tomass came out of the kitchen, carrying small platters of various foods. Since they didn’t know what to feed her, Aisha decided that they would just have to experiment.

He sat on the couch and started offering bits of food to the dragon. She showed no interest in any of the vegetables or breads he offered, but nearly took off one of his fingers when he held out a slice of raw meat.

Gideon sat across from him and watched, face still lit up with excitement, despite the fact that Aisha wouldn’t let him hold her. “Have you thought of a name for her?”

Aisha hadn’t put any thought into it yet, but when he open his mouth to reply, he already knew her name. “Jura is what she is called.”

Jura chirped again, wanting more meat. Her request was immediately fulfilled.

Gideon watched the dragon. He had never expected the egg to actually do anything. He’d really gotten his money’s worth now. “I wonder why she hatched, her egg was really old.” 

“I do not know.”

Gideon looked up at Aisha and got another shock. Aisha’s expression looked a bit softer than normal. “Well then, what do we do now?”

“I will have her registered in the pet system for now, I will have to speak to Lord Jupiter about this.” He really didn’t want to talk to Lord Jupiter, what if the system made him get rid of the dragon? What if it wanted him to hand Jura over to Raoul for study? That would be worse than just letting her go. He was going to have to build himself a strong case.

Gideon couldn't believe how many emotions the dragon was drawing out of usually stone cold blondie. It was unlikely anyone would detect the subtle changes in his speech and behaviour, but no one else knew Aisha as well as he did.

“I don’t think there will be any issues, Lord Jupiter would be foolish not to let you keep her. It would be a good opportunity to study her- without using Raoul’s methods.” He also knew that Raoul would try to get his hands on her, and that things likely would not end well.

Tomass came around with a tray of tea, and Gideon took a cup. For once, Aisha as too preoccupied for tea.

“I will send him some of the eggshells for now, he has already heard of the egg’s existence and has been bothering me about it ever since.” If it were possible, he would hide Jura’s existence from him, but that was an impossible task.

Jura consumed nearly all of the meat on the platter. With a satisfied grunt, she tucked her head under her small wing and went to sleep. Aisha gently pet her back, feeling the smoothness of her vibrant scales.

“Can I touch her now?” Gideon was feeling impatient.

“I suppose.”

Gideon got up and moved beside him, not getting as close he would like since he knew Aisha didn’t like that. He reached out and touched the hatchling, aware that Aisha was watching him like a hawk. 

“She’s like a living gemstone,” he said softly, not wanting to wake her. Jura’s scales were as smooth as tumbled stone, but surprisingly soft to the touch. He wondered if they would harden over time- old Alpha Earth legends implied that they would.

“Hmm, maybe you should bathe her. She seems to have something on her scales.” Gideon rubbed a patch of scales, noticing how they became shinier as he did.

“She was rather sticky when she first hatched... we did towel her off quickly.” And then he had become distracted with everything else.

“Then it would be wise to bathe her.” Gideon rubbed the dried egg goo off his fingers.

Aisha looked down at the sleeping form, not wanting to wake her. With great reluctance he did, and she grunted in protest. “Tomass, run the bath.”  
\---  
This was the first time that Aisha was glad that the bathtub’s base could be raised. Otherwise he would have had to get in the water with her in order to reach her. Normally Tomass was in charge of helping wash pets, but Jura wasn’t an ordinary pet. Aisha would do it himself- with Gideon’s apparent supervision.

“You don’t need to supervise, you can go back to bed now if you wish.” They both knelt beside the tub, which was sunk into the floor

“I’m too awake now to go back to sleep. I’d rather stay and help.”

“Fine.” He lowered Jura into the water.

She stood in it for a moment, it just barely covered her back. The she stuck her snout in and snorted, squealing as bubbles formed up.

Gideon chuckled. 

She stuck her head under and did it again, delighted by this discovery.

“Right, let’s get you cleaned up.” Aisha grabbed a cloth and leaned in close- a mistake. Jura immediately started hopping and splashing about, her wings tossing water everywhere.

Gideon suppressed a laugh as Aisha received a face full. “Here.” He held out a towel.

Washing a dragon hatchling was much more work than Aisha had anticipated, but eventually he got Jura all cleaned up. He decided that next time would bathe with her, since she was going to soak him anyways. Tomass was going to have to spend the day drying the washroom.

“Are you going to wash me now? I daresay, she’s done half the work already, though I could use your loving scrub.” Gideon was nearly as soaked as he was.

Aisha rolled his eyes and started to towel down Jura. “I don’t really know why you bother with those jokes.”

“Because I care about you.” He wanted nothing more than to take their relationship to the next level, and found himself resisting the urge to kiss him. “Plus, this is the only time it get to see you so wet.” 

Only Gideon could get away with saying stuff like that.

“You’re just an idiot.”

Aisha was aware of Gideon’s sentiments towards him, the blondie had been trying to woo him for months now. But, elites were not supposed to form intimate relationships with anyone, they were above such trivial things. Iason was an exception and it kept getting him into trouble- mongrel aside. Aisha did not understand why Jupiter hadn’t reprogrammed him to fix his major flaws.

Aisha would not let himself stray down Iason’s path of debauchery, even if his partner was another elite.


	2. Teething

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jura is growing, and that's leading to some issues.

"She's destroyed them. All of them."

It had been about a week since Jura had hatched. Both Aisha and Tomass were early at their wits end. Aisha had taken a few days off work to ‘monitor Jura’s progress’. Today was the first day he’d return to work, and had spent it playing catch up. He hated playing catch up, it was stressful and usually could be avoided. Of course, in this situation it could not. He hadn’t known ahead of time that he was going to be absent. Jura’s sudden hatching was not something he’d been able to plan for, both he and Gideon had assumed the egg was a dud.

Aisha ended the day in a foul mood. All his projects were behind, and the platina seemed to be more incompetent than usual. He had wanted to stay late to finish up some things, but he felt that it wouldn’t be wise to leave Jura alone any longer, even if Tomass was there.

The small dragon had nearly doubled in size, from that of a cat to a medium sized dog. Both Aisha and Tomass were amazed at how quickly she grew. This meant, of course, that her appetite had grown as well, and Aisha found himself researching food suppliers.

He entered his suite and was met with utter chaos. Jura was bouncing around the living room, shaking apart the remaining plush pillow from the couch, Tomass was trying to stop her, with no success, and everything was covered in stuffing from what had been the other pillows.

As soon as she spotted him, Jura let out an excited squeal and bounded over to him, the pillow still tightly clenched in her jaws.

Aisha had no idea how to react, he’d never seen his suite in such a state before, and nearly stepped back out into the hall. Instead he closed his eyes for a moment and then reached down to take the pillow away.

“Give it here,” he commanded, a bit more harshly than needed. This was not the welcome he’d been expecting today, nor the one he needed. Jura was too excited by his arrival home to notice his displeasure and happily let go of it. 

“Come, “ he said a bit more gently, “Let’s feed you while Tomass cleans up.” He led her into the kitchen, tossing out the shredded pillow as they went.

Tomass looked like he was going to cry. He knew Lord Rozen would punish him for this, even though it was impossible to keep a baby dragon in check. Immediately he began to clean up the mess, not wanting to incur anymore of his master’s anger.

Aisha got her fed then took her into the bathroom to oil her scales. He’d managed to find some old data about dragon care, and apparently oiling her scales while she was still young would make them much stronger as she grew, and would improve their luster. Plus, Jura really seemed to enjoy the attention, it calmed her. Aisha worked in silence, not wanting to think about the problem they now faced- how to keep her entertained during the day while he was gone. He did not want to come back to a scene like this every day, nor did he want to have to replace his decorative pillows that frequently.

Despite his annoying day, he felt little anger towards Tomass for this incident. Normally he would fault Tomass for being unable to manage a pet, but Jura was no ordinary pet. Still, some punishment for the furniture was in order. Aisha would handle that later.  
By the time they were finished, Tomass had the living room spotless again, but something caused Aisha to frown. Gideon, who he hadn’t seen since Jura’s hatch-day, had invited himself over and was sitting on the now pillow-less couch. Thankfully Tomass seemed to have finished cleaning before Gideon arrived.

“Aisha! How was your return to the security grid? How is Jura?”

Jura, who had been walking behind Aisha in the hall, pushed around him to go see Gideon. His scent was vaguely familiar, but she had to make sure.

Gideon blinked in surprise at the size of the dragon sniffing him. “Oh my, she really has grown, hasn’t she? I thought you had been exaggerating in your last message.”

“I have no reason to exaggerate.” He didn't want to entertain Gideon tonight, not after such a long, obnoxious day. He still took a seat on the other couch.

Gideon didn’t miss the curtness of Aisha’s reply. Hmm, Aisha did seem a bit tired, not that anyone but him could tell. “I take it your return to work was hectic.”

“There are many tasks only I can do, so of course it was busy, but manageable.” Just. Though he had many of the lower elites working under him, he didn’t trust their capability to run the security grid without him, especially when he was absent with so little notice. And the grid was only one of his responsibilities. As overseer of all of Tanagura, save for Eos tower specifically, there were many aspects to his job, most of which he would not trust to anyone else. If he had his way, he would be the sole elite working in his department, but of course Jupiter wouldn’t allow that, for it would be impossible for one person to do, even if they were a blondie.

Tomass came out and poured some tea, which Aisha promptly took a cup.

Jura climbed awkwardly onto the couch with Gideon, who moved over to make room for her. “And how was your day, miss Jura?” He scratched her under the chin, causing her to make a pleased humming sound.

“She did not handle the day well. She became bored and found unfortunate ways to entertain herself.”

Gideon looked at him and raised a brow, “Oh?” 

“Tomass spent a good portion of this evening cleaning up the mess.”

Gideon looked around and noticed that the ugly pillows were gone. He hid his amusement by taking a cup of tea and sipping it. He made a mental note to give Jura a treat later. Hopefully Aisha wouldn’t replace them.

“That’s unfortunate, we will have to come up with something else for her.”

We? Gideon wasn’t a part of this. This was Aisha’s issue to deal with. But, he realized that he couldn’t afford to miss anymore work to work with Jura, and if Gideon was willing to help, he would be foolish to refuse.

“Humph, we’d better come up with something now then.”

Ah, now Aisha was seeming more like his usual self. Has to be the tea, Gideon thought.

“Well, if she’s causing issues here, perhaps you should take her with you?”

Aisha didn’t even grace that suggestion with a response, and just gave Gideon his usual emotionless stare. 

“Ah, well, perhaps not. That could be disastrous in it’s own way.”

They sat in silence for a moment.

“Why not have the furniture take her out for walks? Has she left this suite once yet? It would be good for her and keep her busy.”

That wasn’t a bad suggestion. “That may work for now, but as she grows, she will easily drag Tomass around. And where can she be walked? All of the green spaces we have are reserved for pets, not dragons.” He would never hear the end of it from Orphe if Jura messed up one of the gardens, and it would give Iason an opening as well.

“I suppose she would have to be walked in the halls for now, they aren’t elaborately furnished with anything she could get into,” Gideon mused.

It wasn’t the best solution,but it was a start for now. “I will have Tomass try it tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow? We may as well take her out now, observe how she reacts.”

Aisha didn’t want to go back out, but, he had to agree with gideon. Better to try it now, instead of leaving it to Tomass. He realized he had another issue.

‘I do not have a collar or leash for her.”

Gideon put his tea down. “Ah yes, the real reason for my visit.” 

Aisha doubted that whatever was coming was the real reason for his visit, nearly anything could be an excuse for Gideon to invade his home.

Gideon produced a small velvet box from within his robe. “I hope it still fits.”

It was a collar made of metal, linked together almost like chain, but much more elegant looking. At the front of it was a large, flat silver butterfly.

“Made of the strongest alloy I could find! I think Jura would be hard-pressed to break it.” He clasped it around the dragon’s neck - it was a good fit. “Excellent! Though I daresay she will likely outgrow it soon. But, it is better than nothing.”

The dragon tried to sniff the collar, but her neck couldn’t bend that much. She quickly lost interest in it, and nosed Gideon’s hand, wanting more attention.

Aisha had Tomass fetch one of unused pet leashes.

The walk down the hall went better than they anticipated. Jura sniffed about, but the halls were unfurnished. She was a bit confused by the leash at first, but quickly became occupied with exploring to notice.

“I think Tomass will be all right with her,” Gideon nodded.

“If her walks are always like this, then yes. But if she gets bored, she may drag him around.”

“Perhaps you can make a few different routes for them to follow so she has something a bit different each time.” The tower was a bit maze-like, especially to those unfamiliar with it.

“I suppose.” Aisha was still a bit wary of letting Tomass walk her. Many things could go wrong and furniture weren’t known for being physically strong. If she didn’t overpower him now, it wouldn’t be long before she did.

“It will be fine. Once she gets used to him, she will listen and everything will be alright.”

Aisha was just going to have to accept that for now.


End file.
